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A Catholic homeschooling mum of 6, 3 boys and 3 girls - who is enjoying digging richly into all possiblities of liturgical living in the home.
This blog is a 'window' into our liturgical life and my thoughts on this. It is not a reflection of my daily struggles necessarily, nor does it reflect my ongoing need to grow daily in virtue. Please say a quick prayer upon reading this for me and know this blog represents the blessings and grace freely given to us from above.

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Friday, May 27, 2011

Miraculous Medal Mobile Facelift for May

Four years ago in the month of May, the children and I worked together on a miraculous medal craft that has lasted us to this day. It was a very practical craft that enabled us to have a lovely visual reminder to offer the prayer,"Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." It also allowed us to write the prayer intentions onto paper and pin it to the 'shower and streams of grace' coming from Our Lady's hands.

The mobile hangs in the main room of our house and constantly reminds us to offer the prayer, and remember the intentions.

Recently I've been working on giving the mobile a bit of an extra lift, but before I show you what I have done, have a quick look at my previous postings on the making and use of this mobile, starting way back in 2007.

Removing the plastic beads from the fingers of Our Lady and replacing them with:

Some little crystals that throw off blue and lemon lights that are lovely and eye catching.

The next change was sewing 8mm and 4mm crystals to the fine netting material with stars. Closer to the top I sewed a 4mm crystal on each star, further down I sewed onto the stars 8mm crystals. These were not expensive, I found some very cheap 3rd grade crystals (ones with slight irregularities in shape) and used them liberally. These too, throw off lights.

The next change was a little adjustment to the world that Our Lady is standing on:

What I decided to add was a felt cut out of my country Australia and I think I will glue on another little 4mm biscone crystal on the spot where we live...just a nice touch for the children, to show that Our Lady has her heart and mind turned towards us, even though we are but a very small spot in this big, wide world.

The two images below show my favourite change. Our Lady's Halo.

As you can see above, I had used some felt with a ring of yellow/gold plastic beads.

I bought some 3rd grade 6mm crystals in the colours, crystal and blue. I glued the felt with the crystals and finished by adding a ring of blue crystals...the effect is stunning and Our Lady's whole halo throws of lights and glints.

I also built up Our Lady's hair with another thickness of felt in the same original colour.

Here are some photos of the updated mobile without the petitions added at this point.

Previously our prayer petitions were written on little rectangular pieces of paper and pinned to the netting that looked like the photo below:

The change I've made with writing out the petitions is I found a lovely pen image of a rose and copy and pasted it to fill an A4 sheet of paper. I printed them up on blue paper and then cut out the individual roses and popped them in a clip lock bag, ready for use.

I also added blue crystals over the stars on the back of the mobile as you can see below.

Below you can see the photos of the prayer mobile complete with the new prayer intentions added.

Part of saying the prayer, "Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." you should also be wearing the miraculous medal around the neck, usually on a chain. This often proves difficult with little children, strong chains can be expensive. So I decided to sew miraculous medals (and St Benedict medals) into the family scapulars two years ago which has been very effective. By sewing the medals inside the scapulars, they were safe from falling off (as they usually will fall off in time, no matter how firmly you sew them on).

Recently I have created another way to wear the miraculous medal which also includes wearing another very special sacramental ~ A St Anthony's Brief ~ which is a particularly powerful exorcism sacramental. The wonderful story about St Anthony's Brief is here and will show it's efficacy in protection against the devil and all evil.

You can see below the St Anthony's Brief on a cross (on the other side of the cross is an image of St Francis and the 'priestly blessing' from Numbers Chapt 6. The two necklaces you see below are for myself and my eldest daughter. My daughter 'Faustina' has the miraculous medal rosary centre with the two roses on the front, whereas I have a more traditional medal.

In the photo below you can see my middle daughter's necklace, she has great devotion to St Therese, so I wired a little St Therese 'rose' medal in between the miraculous medal and the St Anthony's Brief Cross. The other one is my youngest son's necklace.

Here is a close up of my son's necklace, since he is only 6 I haven't added a clasp. I haven't added a miraculous medal as yet, but I'll put a small medal near the rosary centre. The boys all have St Benedict rosary centres with the special exorcism lettering.

Here is my youngest son and oldest daughter, showing their necklaces, they can be worn under clothes or outside where they can be seen, they are very practical.